


Phenolphthalein

by raininshadows



Category: Chuubo's Marvelous Wish-Granting Engine (RPG)
Genre: Chemistry, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:53:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21831043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raininshadows/pseuds/raininshadows
Summary: Chemistry for high school students.
Relationships: Leonardo de Montreal/Seizhi Schwan
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Phenolphthalein

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wasuremono](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wasuremono/gifts).



> Phenolphthalein is an acid-base indicator. When you put it in a normal acid, it's colorless; when you put it in a base, it's a really bright purple-pink.

Seizhi kind of thought of his relationship with Leonardo in terms of this chemistry thing Leonardo had explained to him a while back, about acid and water. About how if you put water into acid, it’ll get super hot and splash everywhere and it’ll be bad, but if you put acid into water, then it’ll go smoothly. 

This was right after Shokyou had cleared out the entire chemistry lab by accidentally pouring water into her sulfuric acid and sending boiling sulfuric acid everywhere, and they were standing outside in the hallway waiting for the campus fire department to finish dealing with the boiling acid (nobody was quite sure _why_ School had its own fire department, but they did) and Ms. Anyeji to get back from taking Shokyou to the nurse. Shokyou had been wearing her goggles, and Ms. Anyeji had shoved her into the safety shower immediately, so Seizhi was pretty sure she’d be fine, but any harm to Shokyou worried him in an existential way.

So they’d all been standing in the hallway, and Seizhi had said, pretty much to himself, “What _happened_?” 

Leonardo, who’d been a few feet away looking out a window, had turned around and said “It’s elementary, honestly. If you put water into acid, of _course_ it’s going to produce an exothermic reaction. Even if we hadn’t been over this in the lecture, it’s simple enough to work out on your own.” 

Seizhi had stared at him. 

Leonardo had dived into an explanation of how it made chemical bonds break, which released thermal energy and thus caused the resulting mixture to boil, but broke off when he realized that Seizhi was understanding about one word in five. “Never mind why,” he’d said, returning to his window. “That’s just how it works. You have to add the acid into the water, or, well.” He gestured to the classroom.

Not too long after that, the bell had rung and sent them all along to their next classes. Seizhi’s was world history, which was usually with Shokyou but she wasn’t there today because she was still in the nurse’s office. He’d explained to Mr. Zhang, who’d nodded and said he hoped Shokyou was all right, and spent the rest of the period contemplating what Leonardo had said. Acid to water, not water to acid. 

He could see the similarities. It had taken a while to learn how to be friends with Leonardo in ways he didn’t react badly to. Any claim that they were actually _friends_ would make Leonardo snap back that they weren’t friends, he didn’t like any of them, and they should just leave him alone. 

At the longest, it lasted maybe a week or two before he started hanging around them again. Leonardo always came back, quieter, less inclined to talk, and then they made it clear that he was still their friend (but without ever using what had become semi-jokingly known as the F Word) and everything was back to normal again. 

Seizhi was not, by nature, an aggressive person. He was the friend, after all. He’d been created to give Shokyou a best friend. So he liked her, obviously, but it was nice to have a chance to be around someone he wasn’t sort of existentially friends with. Like Leonardo. Or Jade, although she had lots of very important sun goddess stuff to be doing. She didn’t talk much about what exactly that _was_ , and Leonardo was insistent that it didn’t really matter because the sun was his heart, but regardless, Jade’s usual extracurricular was “being the sun”. Which, as extracurriculars went, was probably a lot better than chess. 

Seizhi was not an aggressive person, which he figured was maybe part of the reason he found Leonardo so interesting. Leonardo _was_ an aggressive person. According to Shokyou, who’d known Leonardo before he went to the Bleak Academy, he’d kind of always been like that. According to the more salacious rumors going around School, he’d once set Billy Sovereign on fire - but knowing Billy Sovereign, while Seizhi wouldn’t have done it himself, he could see why Leonardo would want to. And clearly it hadn’t done any real harm. 

Leonardo was aggressive and twitchy and in some ways just as much a creature of nightmare as his creations (although it was the sad kind of nightmare, the kind that left you cold and alone and needing to go drink hot chocolate and get a hug, instead of the scary kind that made you wake up screaming), and Seizhi loved that about him. 

It took until they were all in junior year for things to move out of the neat little equilibrium they’d pulled into. Shokyou and Seizhi hung out together a lot, Jade joined them when she wasn’t too busy with being the sun, and Leonardo oscillated in and out of the group depending on whether or not someone had set him off recently. 

Fittingly enough, it was during another chemistry lab that Seizhi and Leonardo managed to, as Shokyou put it after the fact, Upgrade Their Relationship. It was one of the tamer labs, all about finding out how strong a particular acid was - done by adding a base with indicator solution into the acid, and waiting for the indicator to turn the pastel pink that meant it had become a base. Leonardo had been doing all the actual lab work himself since the beginning, after telling Seizhi to write everything down. There had been something going on between them for a while, and Seizhi wasn’t quite sure what it was or how to pin it down. Leonardo seemed less prickly with Seizhi. Less prickly in general, really, but especially with Seizhi. And he seemed to be trying to spend more time with Seizhi, hence how they’d ended up lab partners, instead of Leonardo trying to convince the teacher to let him go it alone as usual. 

“Do you want to do this bit?” Leonardo asked unexpectedly, breaking the flow Seizhi was used to, where his job was to write down the data Leonardo fed him so that it could be collated and used to write up their lab reports. Seizhi blinked. Leonardo was indicating the buret they’d been using, a long glass pipe filled with sodium hydroxide and the indicator solution. 

“Um, sure,” Seizhi said, stepping away from the lab notebook. He and Leonardo switched positions, and he started adding drops of the sodium hydroxide base into the acid. 

Leonardo seemed weirdly focused on Seizhi, although Seizhi couldn’t place how much of that was because Leonardo was actually paying attention to _him_ and how much of it was the experiment, which was usually what Leonardo was looking at. Seizhi had to admit, for his end, that ever since they’d been in class together this semester, he’d been kind of inexplicably drawn to Leonardo. He wasn’t sure why. He liked looking at Leonardo, he felt happier arond Leonardo, who knew the exact details. 

“Is there a problem?” Leonardo asked at one of Seizhi’s pauses.

“Oh! No,” Seizhi said quickly, and returned to the experiment. Moments later, he added, “Do you think this is the right color? It looks right to me, but I’m not quite sure.” 

It was usually hard to tell whether you’d added enough of your base without overshooting; if you waited until the solution turned the eye-searingly bright pink of a true base, you’d gone much too far, but if you were too faintly pink, you hadn’t gone far enough. So one of the most common questions asked was “is this an appropriate shade of pink”. 

Leonardo examined the flask they’d been using closely, getting very close to Seizhi. “Yes,” he finally concurred. “That’s right.” 

“Good,” Seizhi said. If Leonardo was actually agreeing with him about something science-related, he’d clearly actually learned something. 

Leonardo finished writing everything down, and they began to clean up. Leonardo worked fast, so usually they were done before the other lab groups; today was no exception. After finishing with cleanup, they started heading for their next calsses - some advanced math class for Leonardo, English for Seizhi. As they were about to separate and head for their respective buildings, Leonardo tapped Seizhi on the arm. 

“Hm?” Seizhi turned around. 

“You want to go get dinner tonight?” Leonardo asked, his eyes somehow seeming even more serious than usual. “Just the two of us?” He looked down, seemingly blushing. “You know, in a… date sort of way?” 

The bright burning sensation of acid splashed through Seizhi. “Yes!” he blurted out before he could even stop to think. After a second to think through what had just happened, he added again, quieter, “Yes.” 

Leonardo smiled, for one of the first times Seizhi had ever seen. “Good. I’ll see you then.” 

Seizhi headed for English class with a new burning warmth suffusing him.


End file.
